Chapter Twenty-Six Nothing to Sacrifice
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nothing to Sacrifice
The next morning, Poppy stood, holding her breakfast at the foot of the pantheon. Hasan waited upstairs, respecting her request. She needed to speak to the gods alone, without trying to imitate his behavior.
She chewed on her lip, staring at the idols.
Many of them still looked unfamiliar, but now she recognized a handful: Altan, crowned in gold, perched at the peak of the volcano.
Pregnant Rukmini, sitting on the fields of Sanivali.
And finally, Savana, a bow in one hand and a sitar in the other, dressed in silver and blue.
Poppy focused on her. Savana had not been afraid to claim her own power, and neither would she.
“We both know what it is to feel isolated,” she told the statuette. “I can’t go back to that.”
With that, she kneeled and put the plate down.
After a moment’s hesitation, she recited, “My veins are a vessel for the divine power of the gods. If they find my sacrifice worthy, may I be filled with their cosmic energy.” Instead of focusing on her pronunciation, Poppy held eye contact with the idol, praying, Please, Savana.
Even a fraction of your strength would be enough.
Her skin tingled—or was she imagining it?
She forced herself to leave the pantheon and head out to the yard, where Hasan and Harithi waited with a bucket of dirty, soapy water. Poppy glanced at Hasan first. His expression was neutral, his face relaxed. If he thought she’d failed again, he did a good job of hiding it.
“We’re going to start simple today,” he said. He gestured to Harithi, who dumped the bucket of water into the grass. It seeped into the hard earth, the dry soil drinking it greedily.
“Try to summon it back,” Hasan instructed. “Draw the moisture back into a puddle on the surface. Once you master that, you can try to put it back in the bucket.”
Hold a puddle. How hard could that be?
She closed her eyes, slowly reaching for the power. Trepidation came over her. She hesitated, mental fingers outstretched. What if the prayer hadn’t worked again? This time, she’d have no one to blame but herself.
Hasan’s and Harithi’s curious stares weighed on Poppy. It occurred to her that the longer she stalled, the more concerned they would become. Hasan took a step closer, stirring the air beside her.
“Miss Sutherland—”
“No!” She threw out a hand to keep him from coming closer. “I’m fine. I’m just concentrating.”
Before she could lose her nerve, she reached for the daivyakhi, splaying her fingers wide.
In the soil, the water was trickling down quickly, heading toward the groundwater reservoir deep below them.
Snapping her fingers into a fist, Poppy caught it with her powers before it could sink any farther.
After a moment of fumbling, she managed to pull the water up through the earth again, like a sieve in reverse, drawing her arm upward as if hauling a bucket from a well.
The top layer of soil sprayed everywhere as a miniature geyser of water shot out of the earth.
Harithi swore using a creative string of filthy words, both Virian and Welkish.
Hasan jumped back, lifting a hand in a futile attempt to shield himself from the muck.
Poppy tried to funnel the water into the bucket, but the geyser struck the tin, punting it toward the house with a clank.
“Okay, stop!” Hasan shouted. “Stop, stop. Let’s not use all the energy at once.”
She let go immediately. The water slumped back down into the earth, trickling away. She waited for the nausea to hit, for the earth to spin. Nothing. Her senses remained clear, her pulse racing with excitement, not exertion.
“I did it!” she cried, elated. She spun around to Hasan, eager for his approval. “Did you see that? It worked!”
Hasan wiped mud off his face as he tried to gather his composure. “It was kind of hard with the water in my eyes,” he deadpanned, “but yes. I saw it. You did well.”
Warmth spread through her at the praise.
Harithi laughed, raking clumps of dead grass out of her dark mane. “It was fucking great.” She grinned. “Let’s do it again.”
Poppy got two more rounds of practice with the power from her breakfast sacrifice before her daivyakhi ran out.
On her last try, she even managed to get some of the water into the bucket, which was now badly dented, although most of it had splashed everywhere else.
Harithi headed inside, loudly proclaiming that she wanted to use the bathtub first. Hasan’s kameez was soaked, the wet fabric plastered indecently to his skin.
Poppy averted her eyes, focusing on a clump of mud stuck in his hair.
“Good job,” he huffed, wringing out the tail of his shirt. “We’ll work on it. Control will come with practice.”
“That’s one thing I don’t understand,” she said. “How did the rulers of old maintain the island if they got such little mileage out of each sacrifice?”
“Well, they were sacrificing more than just their breakfasts,” Hasan pointed out.
“But beyond that, you’re right—our sacrifices aren’t as potent as theirs used to be.
We think that the gods’ power and influence has diminished since their temples were desecrated in the fall of Viryana.
” His expression grew distant as he recalled, “There used to be massive, grand temples built around the island. There were always two on any royal compound: one meant for the use of all the palace inhabitants, and then a small, personal one for the maharaja’s use.
These temples housed grand, life-sized statues of the gods. ”
“Wait, I’ve seen those statues,” she realized. “In a museum in Welkland. The headmistress took us on a trip there once.”
A muscle in Hasan’s jaw ticked. “They were stolen,” he said. “After Jagat Rai died and the Welks finally annexed Viryana, they ransacked the temples, then built cathedrals to their own god atop the skeletons.”
She shifted from foot to foot. How vile, that the statues Hasan’s ancestors had worshipped were trapped in glass cases on a continent across the sea, where their descendants would never see them again. “Is there a solution?” she asked.
Hasan shook his head. “The gods have been banned, so we can’t build new temples.
Most Virians hide their pantheons in subtle ways, but the power from these makeshift altars is limited.
For many, it’s not worth having them at all.
Under the imperial edict, the penalty for having them is up to five years imprisonment. ”
“But it’s still worth it for you?”
“Miss Sutherland, I run a criminal organization,” Hasan reminded her. “Household idols are the least of my concerns.”
She rolled her eyes at him but remained quiet, expectant.
He rubbed at his chin. “My grandfather was adamant that we remain faithful to the old ways,” he said.
“The idols were his prized possessions. He believed firmly that one day, the gods and their chosen people would have control over Viryana again. I used to think it was the wishful thinking of an old man, but now . . .” He glanced at her as his sentence trailed off.
“Now?” she prompted.
“Now, I think I’m a little more optimistic than I used to be.” He looked away. “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s go inside and get cleaned up. Tomorrow, we’ll try again.”
· · ·
By the time the pair of them had washed the grass and mud from their skin and changed into dry clothes, the others in the house had already eaten lunch.
They had left portions for Poppy and Hasan in the kitchen, where the two sat together and ate.
Privately, Poppy considered the absurdity of her reality: Not even a full month ago, she and Richard had been dining in the best restaurants in the city of Marnapur.
Now, she was in Sanivali, a rural village, eating lunch with her hands with a notorious criminal for company, after a morning of using unnatural magic she’d gained by praying at an illegal altar.
She’d had some time to reflect more on what Hasan had mentioned earlier, that the sacrifices made through these small altars did not yield the same amount of daivyakhi as the grand temples of old Viryana.
It had certainly given her more insight into the current social climate—despite Hasan’s earlier notion that the people had the power to choose or reject a ruler, the diminished strength of divine magic was further evidence as to why Virians had not yet revolted against imperial rule.
Using one’s daivyakhi against the empire was virtually ineffective, even with training, and would only result in steep personal consequences for the wielder.
But it did not explain a blind spot in her education that was becoming increasingly obvious the longer she dwelled on it: Why hadn’t the daivyakt of old used their power to stop Welkish colonizers, before it had been outlawed and reduced to the shadow it was today?
“Hasan?” she asked, fiddling with the edge of her placemat.
He looked over at her. “What is it?”
“I was wondering if you’d tell me the story of how the Welkish people came to rule Viryana. Not the version that my tutors taught me. Your version, the one your parents told you.”
Hasan pushed his empty plate away from him, sitting back. “I’d wondered about that, at the museum,” he said. “If you only knew their version of our history. Why are you thinking about that now?”
Poppy explained her question, about why the old daivyakt had not fought to preserve the independence of the country.
“They did fight,” Hasan said, “but in the revised history that the Welks tell, they are both villainized and minimized. The true story starts, funnily enough, with the dry season.
“Dry seasons in Viryana were not so devastating for the population as they are now, I’m told.
Daivyakt, both nobles and priests alike, would raise water from the aquifers beneath the island, similar to the exercise you did today with the bucket, and distribute it to vasudhakt in exchange for tithes or taxes. ”